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So everything seems to be going well, in terms of training anyway. Alice and I continue to improve and even our coach thinks we have enough for a short (3-minute) routine. He even listed the things we might include, but I’m not content with those. I have my own ideas, and Alice is in agreement – we’ll improve to go beyond what we have so the routine will be more kick-ass.

I once asked her why she chose to pair up with me. She’s been reticent about answering, and while I am curious, I won’t push it. We talked a bit about some personal things, none of which I’ll mention here (hey, I was seventeen once. I hardly knew my own motivations back then). I think we know each other better, and I’m willing to continue with what we’re doing. She is adamant about being committed, though at her age, being so passionate seems only natural. If I had to guess, this may last for a while. Maybe even after she’s in college. At that point, there will be plenty of guys who will want to be with her. And I’m sure she’ll want to do more with her free time than hang out with her elderly base-man when that happens! We’ll see how it goes.

I have suggested she broaden her circus horizons a little by taking a couple of sessions with Mary Kelly’s Fly School, while it’s in town. She agreed, and is rather excited about it. I also suggested a few sessions with Buster, of Latin Nation so we can learn the lifts and turns that salsa has to offer. Which was also met with some enthusiasm, and I’ll be emailing her mother about this soon.

I suspect my girlfriend won’t be too happy about that. Though… she’s been pretty supportive so maybe she’ll be fine. As she wryly mentioned, Alice is 17. Nothing will be happening.

My girlfriend has a possible gig coming up herself in April. She hasn’t committed to it yet, though I think she’ll do it.

Speaking of gigs… I have something like one coming up as well, in May. I’m not entirely sure how it will go, and it sounds like it’ll be a bit unusual. The one in July I’m doing with Alice is a little more straightforward.

One of the positions we’re working on looks like this:

A simple, but pretty cool-looking position. The plan is to start the routine with her standing on my upper back:

I’ll go from prone to standing, she moving, adjusting, and balancing the whole way. It’s about a minute right there, with 5 minutes to go if we want. I want her to do at least a couple of minutes on the silks – it’s HER show, so I want her to shine. I’m just another apparatus as far as I’m concerned. This time.

Then we’ll squeeze in… we should have time for about 2 and a half minutes for other acro stuff. It’s shaping up to be a decent routine so I think we’ll both be happy with it.

I’ve been working with her since the second week of February. She’s very flexible, though not quite yet to the point of contortionist. However, she needs to be much stronger – a fact she’s all too aware. She IS only 17, so the strength will come as long as she’s consistent.
And you know what? She HAS been consistent. I’ve actually been pretty pleased with her so far. Nervous too. A girl so young… She says she wants this badly enough to take it as far as possible, but I’m finding it difficult to believe she can stay committed for so long.
Part of it too, is that I still don’t know her too well. Yet.
Anyway, she already has a gig lined up for us. She came to me a couple of weeks ago to ask, almost timidly, about doing something at the community arts center (where she works). She was already going to do an aerials routine there, but she thought we might do something together.
“When? July? Yeah, we can probably put something together by then…”
“Bitchin’!”
Oboy…
I’ve long had in mind the possibility of putting a mixed routine together. I don’t know how she is in the air so I’ll need to see that, and then see how we can mesh the two.
I can almost guarantee she’ll be as good as Erica was, in the next few months. Maybe even a little beyond that. How much stronger she gets, is what will determine how much farther she’ll get. That, and how well we can bond together. We’re already getting a feel for each other so things will be progressing quickly until her strength becomes the sole issue.

I admit to being cautiously optimistic. She stands easily on my shoulders, and she’s not too bad about balancing on my head either. When she can do handstands better, I think we’ll do well.

Last week, the boss sits me down for my one-on-one (just a touch base-type meeting to go over anything that either of us might be bugged about). He breaks out my performance review… Crap, I didn’t think I was going to be doing that for another couple weeks yet. Oh weel, best get this over with….
Overall, it went much better than expected. I still have a job. I get a raise, as well as a bonus. More importantly, I get more training. Enough to add code developer to the resume which pleases me greatly, because of the added security. Add to that, a headhunter inquired if I might be interested in a job as a software test engineer in Philly. I’m not all that interested, though if it’s where I think, they pay well enough to head there if I should decide to move from where I am now.
This all makes me feel secure enough to consider buying a house. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years now, and the events of the past year (and the past week) make me think it’s possible. A realtor friend (acquaintance really) said I could get one easily, though he doesn’t know how much of a loan I could get, since I didn’t give him THAT kind of information. Yet.
I’m in no rush, so I’ll wait a bit more. At least until after tax season. I suspect I may have to pay something when I do them, for the first time ever. Oh well.
Oh, the run I did last night? I opted to call it a run at 30 minutes. I still managed to squeeze in 4.24 miles, so it’s faster and farther!

Not much going on. I feel I’m in a stasis until my cast comes off. Which is odd because it hasn’t really limited me from doing too much. I feel in a funk today, and I’m not sure it’s just because of the mid-afternoon sleepies. Some days, you just have to fall back and punt, and that’s what I’m going to do today.

I had a bit of a setback a couple of weeks ago.
I was taking the course to get my motorcycle license, and all was going pretty well.
The bike I was initially riding was a red Buell, and it’s clutch was touchy as hell.

However, it finally decided not to start at one point, so I was given a much nicer bike to work with:

By the end of the day, I was feeling pretty good about working with it. The next day however, I was given the red one to work with again. It was okaaay, but I REALLY liked the yellow one. Oh well.

We were working on the very last thing – sudden stops and was doing okay up until the very last time out. I hadn’t completely disengaged the clutch when I tried to slam the front brake on. The back tire started slipping, then my right hand slipped off the brake onto the throttle, pouring more power to the rear tire, so I didn’t just go down – I got slammed down. I felt something snap in my lower leg as I hit the ground, and then the bike landed on it. (Everyone thinks it was the bike that broke it, but it was being slammed onto the asphalt that did it.)
Lots of pain, but nothing I didn’t expect as I lay there. Chuck (the instructor) cautioned me to lay still for a bit, as he and the others picked the bike up. I tried wiggling my toes, but it was hard to figure out if they were moving through the pain. I THOUGHT they were moving… I saw my boot moving, and the pain remained consistent so maybe it was just going to be a really bad bruise.
“I think I’m okay…” They all grabbed me and lifted me up to my feet. “Check this out! I think I’m good! And leaned on the injured leg, slowly adding weight… “Ta-daa!” I was able to stand on it. Then I lifted it up and flexed and pointed the foot as best I could with the boot on, and though I felt some grinding, I thought it was okay. Lee was dead-set against taking the boot off, and I agreed, I would definitely wait.
We broke for lunch, Chuck saying if I didn’t think I could do the test, or if I wasn’t comfortable taking it after lunch, we could work something out.
But after driving to the nearest pharmacy to take care of the abrasions (Lee did a bang-up job!) I was ready! Sure I was in some pain, but it was manageable.
I was given another bike, this one in even worse shape than the red one (which was leaking gasoline and not at all drivable now), and constantly stalled.
BUT, I still passed my test!

Then we went to the hospital.

Yeah, I DID break something. Whoops. The hospital put a splint on, and a couple of days later, an orthopedist replaced it with a cast.

Ten days later, I was back in, and the doctor was a little surprised at my range of motion, as well as how well the bone had mended. He still wanted the cast on for another couple of weeks, and then he’ll replace it with a boot as I regain the bone’s strength.

To be blunt, it hasn’t really stopped me too much. I go to the gym, and still take classes, even though I’m being careful not to land on my cast foot.

I’m also keeping it all very simple so far.

Baby stuff, as Lin would call it. But it’s keeping me involved, and I think that’s important. The bone gets stronger every day, and I’m even putting more weight on it, periodically.

(I was only shifting the weight from foot to foot.)

At the moment, it almost feels like I could go without the cast, but I’m not complaining too much about it yet.

I feel removed from the holiday coming up – Halloween. While I have a handle on autumn, time itself feels fluid and not as… hard-coded, for lack of a better term. It’s an odd feeling, and I find myself thinking much farther ahead, to spring and summer of next year, rather than focusing on the here and now.

That said, when I AM in the here and now, so to speak, I am finding it beautiful here.

I don’t recall having as much time to enjoy the autumn season and I’m trying to take it in as much as I can. Part of that is in running at the park. While I haven’t run as much as I should – certainly not as much as someone who is supposed to be running the marathon next month, I am getting the occasional run in. The next run is this afternoon after work. Theoretically, it’s going to be whatever I can squeeze into 2 hours. Hopefully, it’ll be 15 miles or more.